


Synergy

by AvaDiablo



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Humour, Team Bonding, Teambuilding, alternate Universe: Company
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 19:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14385420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaDiablo/pseuds/AvaDiablo
Summary: Alternate Universe: Company Team Bonding exercise.When the heads of departments don't get along the president orders them to go on a team-building retreat out in the forest.





	Synergy

Day one

It was too early, Jun decided as he stood outside yawning, waiting at the place where he was going to be picked up. The morning mist seemed reluctant to leave, making the real feel so much colder than it actually was. Hopefully, it would clear up soon because the day started cold and it wasn’t going to improve much according to the weather forecast. He sighed, and upon seeing his own breath appear he blew out again smiling at the puff of cloud leaving his mouth. The smell of mint and coffee filled the air directly in front of his nose. His camping backpack leaned against his leg. It looked like a professional setup, but in the end, it was just a backpack with a sleeping bag on top and warm clean clothes inside. He just hoped it was going to be warm during the night. He didn't have much camping experience. Jun sighed again, feeling the misery return. If there had been ANY way to avoid going on this trip, he would’ve found it by now. But with his job on the line - ‘there wasn’t much of an escape. And for all that it was worth, Jun did like his job as manager of the Administration Team. And he sure as hell didn’t want to go and look for a new job. He just hated to go on this team building thing - even if it was barely a week - the alternative was not good. So these few days of hell were necessary to keep his job.

The shuttle bus stopped in front as Jun contemplated one last time how to get out of the arrangements. His bag was shoved into the back of the bus by the driver before he was allowed to enter the already crowded vehicle. The only places to sit were either between Sakurai Sho from the Finance department or Ninomiya Kazunari, who wasn’t managing anything particular; he was just learning the trade - as expected from the company’s president’s son. Between those two it was hard to pick since Jun didn’t feel particularly favourable to either party.

“Take a seat!” the chauffeur said behind him, his tone of voice unapologetic, “We are late as it is and you’re letting all the heat escape since I can’t close the door!” In a split made decision, Jun took the seat next to Ninomiya, who didn’t even acknowledge him; he just kept on reading his book. On closer inspection, Jun noticed it was a manga with a particular storyline that made Jun blush instantly. He chastised himself for being too damn curious. He wanted to strike up a conversation. Even though Jun liked peace and quiet he wanted to put in some effort - after all this was a teambuilding event. But the bus remained eerily quiet on their way to pick up the last employee by the name of Aiba Masaki. There were seventeen people in the bus, all from the same company, but from different departments. Jun saw a few of his subordinates but they pointedly ignored him when they saw him staring their way. He sighed, already dreading the week to come. Beside him, Ninomiya looked really smug with a knowing smile crossing his lips when Jun glanced back at him, but like the rest he kept quiet.

Aiba Masaki was from the Human Resources department. He was still rather new to the job and his energy was one of a kind. It seemed endless and it particularly rubbed Jun the wrong way in the morning. Aiba-san was all over the place, while Jun still needed to wake up. It was nothing a few cups of coffee and a good breakfast couldn’t clear but before that… Let’s just say that Aiba learned quite quickly to pace himself around Jun in the mornings if he wanted to avoid having his suit and hair messed up by Jun’s angry flying food. 

As it was, the only available space was next to Sakurai Sho. And it took all but four seconds for Aiba to take his seat and start a conversation with the Finance manager who was engaged in typing away on his laptop. Needless to say that Sho-san was not taking well to the sudden inquiries of Aiba.

“Sakurai-san, why did you bring a computer? You know there isn’t much of electricity in the woods, right? Wi-fi doesn’t come from trees. Maybe you should save the power to your device so you can use it later on when you really need it. You know-”  
“Aiba-san! For the love of anything holy, I’m working here!” It was the strict tone that Jun had come to expect from the manager and it effectively shut up his poor colleague who looked a little mortified and muttered an apology before going completely quiet, biting his lower lip, staring out the window looking quite miserable. 

Jun felt a little sorry for the guy. He’d come across Aiba-san plenty of times. He seemed to have good ideas, was smart when he wanted to be, so before he could help it he asked if Aiba-san would like to swap seat with him.  
“Yeah, I don’t agree to that,” Ninomiya said in response before Aiba could even answer, “I don’t need that fuzzball next to me, either.” Aiba made an apologetic face and dove a little deeper into the unrelenting buss seat leaving Jun stunned staring from Aiba to Ninomiya.

From his periphery, it looked like Ohno from the Design department wanted to speak up as well as he tapped Aiba’s shoulder. Aiba remained unresponsive, crossing his arms defensively and for some reason that marked the dead quiet during the bus ride to their final destination; a very long and very awkward bus ride.

Their destination was a lodging site in a forest. They drove through it at a rather fast pace for nearly an hour, giving the impression they were deep in the woods with no way out. The place seemed a little dark with the packed trees. The campsite was pretty simple; a clearing with cabins.

Once everyone was piled out of the bus and their bags were thrown out rather cruelly. After that the bus took off, leaving them stranded with each other. They stood there a little unsurely, eyes drifting from one another to one another. People who seemed to work together got a little closer - small groups formed as it always does in these situations - and Jun stood near his team. There was talk of what they were supposed to do now when a guy came out all energy and smiles.

“Welcome, welcome!” He said clapping his hands for no apparent reason. The messy hair and awkward colour trousers didn’t do anything good for him. He looked kind of nerdy, even more so than Sakurai-san. And on top of that, he sounded like Effie in the trilogy of the Hunger Games. There was some quiet chatter followed by laughter as some of them recognized it as such. Jun got immediately annoyed by their juvenile behavior and he wasn’t the only one; Sakurai Sho turned and practically hissed at the guilty party for being too damn impolite. 

“I’m glad you all made it safely,” the guy continued, “Because these woods are said to be haunted! Not that I have ever seen ghosts or anything, but just saying.” He made a spooky gesture of creepiness with his hands and he watched the crowd.  
Another wave of chatter and laughter; Jun could clearly see the amused faces of his staff, including the ones of Ninomiya and Ohno. Seemed like they were not afraid of ghosts, huh? Jun smirked. He may take that up as a challenge this week.  
Aiba and Sho, however, seemed a little intrigued. Especially Aiba, he seemed a little startled. Jun just found it all comical; it was just some weird talk to break the ice, to break the tension. Apparently, the person in front of them knew that most groups didn’t volunteer for these days of team building and obliged bonding with their co-workers.

“We’ve divided you into groups, and you will share one of the cabins with that group. You can check your name on the rosters on the doors. After you’ve settled in I will tell you the itinerary and today’s assignments. Don’t worry, we’ll have a campfire and dinner tonight - so there’s lots of room for fun in between. The better you cooperate the more you will enjoy yourselves this week. I’m speaking from experience!” He sounded way too cheerful and confidant to Jun’s taste. “I’ll give you an hour to get your stuff in the lodges, to appoint a cabin master and get familiar with your group. Chop chop, we are not getting any younger!” 

It was only as Jun walked toward a cabin and thought about the introduction he noticed the guy had not introduced himself. He shrugged, maybe he would do that later. As most of his colleagues flocked around, Jun walked in the opposite and read the names on the door of the first cabin he came across; cabin number four. Ohno and Sho were bunking together he discovered as he read through the list. He walked to the next and found his name on cabine number three.

Opening the door he was stunned by the sheer lack of things. There were actual bunk beds, and no other rooms; meaning no bathroom, which, all things considered, primal was still quite a shock. Jun discussed the bunkbed issue with himself as he put his bag down on one of the lower beds. More people streamed in chatting and going as far as lowering their voices when they eyed Jun. 

Now, Jun knew he could be scary at times when he was under pressure, but he never thought people would perceive him as scary or someone to watch themselves with. He sighed. But while he contemplated taking the top or lower bed, the choice was made for him, after all his bag was already on a bed.

Since he didn’t really need an hour to do anything, he just opted to walk around the campsite. Mostly he just wanted to avoid the awkwardness of staying inside the cabin. When he stepped out he saw he wasn’t the only one. The one who greeted them was now bringing white painting boards to a very large picnic table. There were pots with paints near the table. Brushes in jars were standing on the table. Their first exercise apparently was to paint something. A group assignment no doubt. Ohno Satoshi was helping him carry stuff and he was rather excitedly talking to the guy. Well, the painting had to do with design, so he shouldn’t really be surprised as Ohno was from the Design unit. But even so, he was surprised. He didn’t know Ohno could even talk that much for the period of time as he watched them prep. 

Ohno was an easy going guy, who didn’t really seem in a particular hurried to get things done. He was meticulous in his design work, but every other aspect beyond that just didn’t really seem to interest him. And therefore didn’t seem to worth his time, or opinion on it. So the guy kept really to himself and stayed quiet mostly.

After the hour was up, they were called and placed by an empty board. The guy, who went on to explain the object of today, introduced himself as Ikuta Toma, who was the founder of this campsite that trained corporate teams to corporate and listen to each other. Their itinerary for the week included painting, an obstacle course, and camping out in the woods for a few nights. 

The painting assignment was rather simple; create a new logo for the company. Each group had to paint their own board any which way they liked, the one thing was that the place of the strokes at the edges of the boards fitted together with that of their neighbours - in other words, they needed to discuss the patterns, because the trick was that they couldn’t see each other's designs. The team captains can have a quick discussion as to what the design should be like in the few minutes before the class would actually start.

As it turned out without Jun realizing he was appointed as the team leader and shoved forward to ‘conduct’ business with the other leaders, which was frankly just same old same old seeing as the other managers were chosen as well. Apparently, no one of their employees felt an inkling of being a team leader. 

The discussion about design was like it often went in their meetings; Ohno’s idea based on what Nino put in as ‘let’s make it obscene’ and Aiba wanted to paint whatever was fun. Jun kept pretty much quiet and Sho as well, mostly because Jun thought he had nothing to bitch about seeing as there were no costs involved.

The design was simple. A lopsided pentagram filled with rainbow colours, with the company’s logo in the middle. Nothing obscene. Nothing no one could have trouble painting.  
“Let’s just get through this. The sooner we get the hang of ‘getting along’, the sooner we get to go home.” Sho murmured wanting things to end already. He wasn’t creative. Or at least, he was creative enough that he would doodle away in the corners of his financial reports when the meetings were tiresome and the end of them would seem hours away, but he was not creative enough to want to show his work to people willingly. 

It took all of thirty minutes after instructing their teams on the design for things to get colourful. Literally.  
“That line is not supposed to be there,” Jun commented on Aiba’s team’s efforts while glancing over the piece of cardboard that supposedly would separate their work area. Aiba looked a bit insulted and then caught on to what Jun was doing.  
“I think what you are doing counts as cheating!. No peeking. Besides, it will fit.” He angled their canvas to match Jun’s.  
“It won’t,” Sho commented glancing over as well breaking the one rule their camp leader had set for this activity. That little comment became an argument as it flowed between the groups. More people got involved very quickly. It wasn’t until Jun got enough of defending his team’s work against the other leaders that he threw his brush down and all kinds of paint drips splattered across the table - and onto people who backed away in comic shock. Several eyes were cast in his direction. Even before he could apologise, a full splash of bright yellow paint was coming his way as Ninomiya threw the paint from the can he was holding after being sufficiently covered in purple pain drops. Part of Nino’s paint that hit Jun in full force sprayed onto Sho who didn’t even blink but retaliated in kind by emptying his cans in both their directions. 

When camp leader Toma came out to some disturbing sounds, he found several people fighting and rolling around on the paint covered grassy ground. Needless to say, they spend the better part of the day and the evening cleaning up the table. And because of Jun bickering against Toma about the cleanup and how juvenile the rest of them were, their camp leader decided against the fun campfire he wanted to hold after a job well done and ordered them to rest up after dinner and get some sleep.


End file.
